


Ephemeral Spring

by seraphic_gate



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Iori/Riku not specifically romantic side relationship, M/M, Riku and Tenn found family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-21 06:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19997227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphic_gate/pseuds/seraphic_gate
Summary: Gaku meets a kitsune spirit with a tail as soft and pink as sakura blossoms. Yokai AU





	1. Chapter 1

Iori climbed the hill behind the barracks, where an older recruit had told him that he may find his lieutenant.

The tree at the top of the hill had burst into a splash of pink since he had last seen it. Cherry blossoms coated the hill like snow. 

That’s where he found his lieutenant, half buried in the pink fluff and hugging a jug of sake. With his silver hair and glassy skin, he may have been considered attractive if not for that vice of his.

“Lieutenant, you cant be drinking at this hour.”

“Did Osaka send you to scold me?”

“No, no one is looking for you. Shouldn’t that in itself be cause for concern, for a ranking officer? Surely you should be needed somewhere.”

“It’s a blessing,” he laughed, and patted the ground beside him. “If you came here on your own, then sit down and enjoy life for a moment. The cherry blossoms are in bloom, after all. And you are young.”

Iori sighed and sat next to the lieutenant. His breath stank of booze. “If you cleaned yourself up a bit and stopped drinking during the day, you could make captain easily, you know.”

“Like you’d want me.”

He cupped his hand over the top of the jug to stop the lieutenant from taking another swig. “The thing is, I do.”

“Why me?”

“It’s because of that scar.” Iori pointed to the scar that ran over the lieutenant’s right eye. The eye itself was miraculously in tact.

He laughed. “Because my face is fucked up?”

“No, you know what I mean. A spirit creature saved your eye.”

“And that makes me fit to lead?”

“More so than the others,” Iori said. “This demon-hunting force has too many who are driven by revenge and hate. Because of your experiences, you’re pragmatic. Measured in your responses.”

“Because of my experiences, I drink too much.”

“That may also be true.”

***

It was not a monster who took his eye, but a human man. 

Although Gaku and his unit were equipped for battle with the supernatural, the state of the nation in these times left them fighting defective soldiers and raiders more often than anything superhuman.

Monsters or monsters, it didn’t matter much to him.

The man was older and knew how to fight with a sword. The disposed servant of some nobility of old, maybe. Reduced in this new world to sacking towns.

He took Gaku’s eye, but Gaku took more than that from him. His blade, tempered for the slaying of demons and beats, easily separated the mere human’s head clean from his shoulders.

But the thud as both parts of him hit the ground was unsatisfying, as the adrenaline wore away and Gaku was left alone and injured. 

Separated from his comrades, Gaku limped aimlessly through the bamboo forest until the pain was too unbearable.

A wound like this wouldn’t kill him immediately, but being so far from any medical care, he wasn’t sure the bleeding would stop on its own. And even if it did, the risk of infection was high. An infection of the eye socket was too close to the brain. He’d die a slow and miserable death.

And so, he waited for whatever was going to happen. That was the worst part of it. Pain too crippling to walk any father, and too severe to wait out the end in sleep. Death could be days away, and his allies could be even farther than that if they assumed him dead.

The sunlight faded into dusk and the thick of bamboo stalks grew dark. Glints of the stars glimmered against incorporeal shapes, and the rustling of the wind sounded like a ghost coming to take him.

But it wasn’t a ghost.

Even if he hadn’t been lacking one eye, he wasn’t sure if he could have made out the form of the creature that approached him. Just his luck, to be hunting for weeks for a demon, only to have one appear after he’d fallen to a human foe.

They could sense a lingering life trapped between worlds, yearning for salvation or death. The fear of what lay in between attracted them like chum in water.

“Here’s what happens when boys play with sharp things.”

The voice was soft and lilting, and when it spoke, it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Annoying in its own way, teasing him.

Gaku gripped his sword and laughed at his luck. “A wounded animal still bites.”

“You won’t be needing that for me.”

As he heard that voice, a hand fell to the grip of his sword. A human hand, or so it seemed. So lithe and delicate, pale in the moonless night.

He couldn’t keep his hold on his sword It fell away, along with his last vestige of resistance.

He looked up and saw the specter itself. Beautiful eyes the color of garnet, not quite red. Big and sparkling of their own light. A pale face, round and framed in soft hair, like a dove’s wings. A pretty face that danced between feminine and masculine, maybe neither. 

He was slender and he wore a fancy dress of red and white like a noble.

Behind him, almost there and not there, was a cluster of fluffy tails the color of spring sakura blossoms.

A kitsune spirit, a nine tailed fox.

“At least you’re one of the good-looking ones,” Gaku said, coughing. “If I had to go out like this, then fodder for a kitsune isn’t the worst fate for a man.”

In spite of the intense pain he was in, a pain that radiated from his eye and inflamed every nerve in his body with each heart beat, he could feel the kitsune‘s hand as it slid under his chin. Tender, the way you’d touch a lover.

“You can smile in spite of all that pain?” He hummed something not quite a laugh and his face lit up with amusement, lovely pink lips smiling at him.

“What else is there to do?”

The kitsune tilted his head and leaned closer. “I’m not here to take you to the afterlife. You made me smile, so I’ll give you a gift.”

“A gift from the yokai, how lucky.”

“It is.”

Soon the kitsune was so close that Gaku could feel his breath against his face. Warm breath, just like any human man or woman. 

The kitsune closed his eyes and Gaku was bathed in darkness once more. He felt the warmth of flesh touch his lips and then, he was enveloped in a kiss.

A sweet kiss, like he hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe never. If he was dying, he may as well relish this last sensation, although it came at the mercy of a yokai.

But, he wasn’t dying.

It was like a breath flowing into him, a sweet release from pain that permeated his body inch by inch. And in its place was not the numb release of death, but vibrant life.

The end of the kiss left him wanting for more. If this was the sensation that led men to their deaths, he’d gladly die. To feel that again, he’d hand over his soul.

But this kitsune didn’t take it, as eagerly as it was offered.

“This is one year of my life,” the kitsune said. His hand slipped away from Gaku’s chin.

He could see. He opened his right eye, and he could see clearly how beautiful this creature was.

“Protect it well, okay? Bye.”

The sound of that otherworldly voice budding him farewell was the last thing he remembered before passing out in the forest and waking up at an infirmary day’s later, with no memory of what had transpired in between.


	2. Chapter 2

“Well that’s a new one.”

Gaku handed the binoculars off to Iori. “Why are there so many of them? Why do they look like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, are they demons or...?”

The things that gathered in the shadows beyond the town’s walls weren’t human at all. Some of them were like brambles of burnt bush, others were like lumps of mud. Some were animalistic, but barely so. They skittered toward the gate.

“I’ve never known demons to travel in huge numbers like that,” he said. “But what category of thing they are doesn’t matter.”

Alarms were already ringing. Gaku stood at the top of the wall and shouted down. “Hey! There’s still civilians outside!”

Yamato looked up at him from down there like _what do you want me to do about it?_

“Keep the gate open, you idiot!”

Yamato stopped the town’s guards from pulling the gate the rest of the way down. 

Gaku took the iron grapple and length of rope he kept around his belt and made sure it was secure. Iori looked at him like he was growing an extra head. “You’re not seriously going down there?”

“It’d take too long to walk all the way around.”

“That’s not the issue!”

Gaku found a sturdy plank to hook the grapple to and began to climb over the edge. “Someone’s got to hold them off while we get as many people inside as we can.”

Iori swallowed hard and all the doubt in his eyes vanished. “What should I do?”

Iori was a stern-hearted squire, but he wasn’t battle-ready yet. “Stay up here, would you? I might need you to pull me up in a minute.”

He pulled a glove over his left hand to stop the rope from eating his skin away, and slid down to the bottom of the wall.

His boots sloshed up mud as they found the ground. He left the rope hanging to serve as his escape.

Yamato and Nagi were already there.

“Glad you could join us, Luitenant,” Yamato said. He waved a family past and into the gate. More were running towards them, panicked, carrying infants and pulling small children along. Elderly folks hobbling fast as they could. This was a rural area, and plenty of people lived on the outskirts.

Nagi’s blade slashed through the first of the little abominations to reach them, a little skittering thing like a spider with way too many legs. It disintegrated into a pile of gangly twigs, smelling of sulfur. Nagi gagged in disgust. “Why can’t I ever meet a pretty one?”

Yamato laughed. “You’d die if you ever did.”

“At least our blades seem to work,” Gaku said. He lifted his sword and looked past its edge to the horde approaching. “I’ll cut through the center. Yamato, clean up the stragglers. Nagi, keep your eye out for the civilians.”

Their voices rang out affirmatives and the fight began.

***

The longer a kitsune lived, the more tails it grew. And with each tail, it’s powers grew. A tail for every hundred years.

Tenn had nine tails. A great honor among his kind. 

Tenn had only to meditate and think of the person he sought to see them, to hear their voice. And with a moment longer, he could appear by their side.

The voices were loudest when that person was in pain. He supposed if he were the sort of spirit who fed on misery, such a skill would be almost omnipotent. 

“Tenn-ni?” A tiny whimper in the void.

When he materialized, he found Riku curled in the center of a black crater in the land. Charred branches and logs splayed out from the center where he laid, covered in soot.

“There you are.” Tenn sighed and knelt beside him. “It’s over now, there’s no need to cry.”

Tears streamed down Riku’s face, leaving trails in the soot that covered him. He buried his face in Tenn’s lap. “It hurts.”

Tenn stroked his hand through Riku’s hair, taking care not to scratch the two black horns that stuck out of his unruly red hair. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”

“But all those people. I tried to get away, far away as I could. But there was a town, a whole town full of people—“

“They’re all right,” Tenn cooed. “There’s no need to fret. The humans defended themselves against those dark things. There’s no need to worry.”

“They did?” Riku sat up and blinked his big, shiny eyes. “So nobody died?”

“Not a single soul.” Tenn smiled and lifted his hand to wipe away Riku’s tears. “A human protected them. My special human, in fact.”

“Your favorite human?” That got Riku to smile. “I bet you were happy to see him again.”

“Hm. A little disappointing, actually. He wasn’t injured this time.”

Riku laughed. “Poor human. I wonder what he thinks about you.”

Tenn wondered that, too. But Riku was more important right now. As much as he’d like to attribute the human with this victory, the fact was that the apparitions had been very weak. Like insects. But as Riku’s power grew, that could change.

He attempted to wipe the soot away from Riku’s face, but it only smeared all over his hand. “Does it still hurt?”

“Yeah. It’s like a headache, but all over.”

“Poor you. Let’s get you away from this dreadful place. Somewhere to relax.”

Riku nuzzled against his shoulder. “Okay.”

***

Gaku found himself doing some work after all, and not because of the dressing down he’d recurved from Captain Osaka. He was curious as to what the hell had happened.

A day of asking random townspeople what they saw left him more mentally exhausted than physically. A few of them recognized him as the man who had fought back the hordes, who had stayed in the fray even after the gates were closed. Who had narrowly escaped with his life.

He thought of it more as frantically climbing up a rope while demons clawed after his ass, but whatever worked for them.

Iori met him in his quarters after he’d already turned in and poured himself a well deserved shot.

“See, I can work and then drink.”

Iori took out a ledger and a pen. “Let me write down what you learned before you nod off so you don’t piss it away.”

“Not much.” Gaku downed the shot. “They said the demons came out of the forest. Soon as we slashed through them, they fell apart. Nothing left behind but mud, sticks, leaves.”

“But all disturbingly black as if burned to cinders,” Iori added to his notes.

“They seemed to emerge from a central location. Soon as the sun is up, a few of us should check it out.”

“I see.”

Gaku stretched his arms over his head and sank back into his chair. “So, tell me about your Yokai.”

“My what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The appearance of those gnarly things shocked you. So you must have seen something easier to look at.”

“I was a child then, so to me he looked like an older boy.”

Gaku poured another shot. “When it comes to ghouls, spirits, demons, and monsters, I have two categories. Ugly ones and pretty ones.”

“He was just normal looking.”

“Really?”

“Well, he had this bright red hair and fiery eyes. I should have known then that he wasn’t human. But I was really small at the time.”

“Sounds like a pretty one.”

He sighed. “Whatever you say, lieutenant.”

***

The next day, he left with Iori and Yamato. Iori was good at writing and cataloging things, and Yamato knew enough about demons to keep his head up of anything got weird.

They followed the path of destruction to the epicenter of whatever had happened. 

The earth was blackened to a crisp. The smell of sulfur suffocated the air. Iori held a sleeve over his nose and mouth while Gaku kneeled to take a sample of the soil.

More than the smell, the place had a sickening atmosphere.

“We shouldn’t linger here,” Gaku said. “I can sense something.”

Iori backed away. “What?”

Yamato answered for him. “You’re new, so you haven’t seen a lot of demons up close. Some of them have this kind of aura that feels like it could sap the very soul out of you. That’s what this whole place feels like.”

Gaku put the sample carefully into a crystal tube, designed to contain whatever demonic aura was within. “Okay. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He led them back into the forest in the direction of the town. 

Yamato noticed him rubbing the back of his neck. “Does it feel like you are being watched?”

“Cut it out with that spooky shit.”

Yamato laughed, but Gaku shared a look with Iori that confirmed the feeling for him.

Yamato didn’t let up. “They say the kitsune of nine tails is all-knowing, all-seeing.” 

He groaned. “Shut up.”

Iori looked at him, a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes. “Kitsune?” 

“Yeah.” He lifted a hand to his face and traced a finger over his eye. 

Iori didn’t ask anything more.


	3. Chapter 3

That was the last battle they’d see without civilian casualties.

Through the months that followed, the people’s unrest rose almost in scale to the sightings of supernatural creatures became more and more common. 

Gaku didn’t understand why, all it meant was that he had more work to do.

“This is a year of my life.” 

Gaku remembered that voice in his head, sweet and playful. 

As the anniversary of that event approached, he wondered if the spirit of that fox would visit him again.

The moon was a bright crescent and the sky was alight with stars. A perfect, still night. He walked out into a barren field, a patch of land waiting it’s turn to be seeded again. 

But his fox of nine tails never appeared to him.

“Do you want it back?” He asked the stars instead. “The year you lent me? I haven’t used it well. There’s nothing I’ve done that any other man couldn’t do. So will you take it back? Will you gouge out this eye?”

There was no answer from the glittering sky. 

He plopped to the ground and uncorked a bottle of sake. He had two cups, and filled them both.

“Standing me up, huh? Well, this one’s for you.”

He turned the second cup over onto the ground.

***

Another years passed, and Iori was tempered into a stoic master of his blade. 

It wasn’t long after the battle with the skittering forest demons that his company had run into a fifty-foot ogre with human limbs stuck in his teeth. That was the kind of thing that laid out bare who could take this sort of work and who couldn’t.

Iori could.

It seemed like every other day they were dispatching goblins or assisting exorcisms.

By the next year, Iori was better at it than Gaku was. 

Osaka Sogo was promoted to the rank of district vice commander, and it was Yamato who took his place as captain of their unit.

That suited Gaku fine. Yamato was a capable leader, without being too stringent or fussy. 

“Why didn’t you try?” Iori asked him, when he heard the news. His eyebrows were all twisted up and he bit his bottom lip.

Gaku shrugged. “I prefer not to.”

That day, Iori had taken Gaku’s sake and thrown it over a wall. 

Unwillingly sober, Gaku laid out on the grass underneath the moon. “How many times do I have to disappoint that kid before he gives up?” 

***

“What does sake taste like?” Riku said, humming. 

Tenn thought of a starry night and a cup turned over onto the earth. The grit of dirt on his lips as he tried to taste it. That silver-haired man sleeping so deep in his stupor, he didn’t wake even when Tenn indulged himself. Just a touch of his cheek. The warmth of his skin and the beat of his heart. For only a moment. 

“It’s like a warm fire,” he said.

Riku giggled. “The humans sure do act funny when it goes missing.”

Tenn narrowed his eyes. “Little imp.”

“Come on, it’s fun to watch them run around!”

Riku lifted his hands in the air and spun around, laughing. 

Tenn caught his hand and rolled up his sleeve. On the inside of his wrist there was a black pit. Like the rot on the down side of an apple. 

Tenn’s fang’s flashed and his eyes flickered. “I told you to _stop_.”

He pulled away and rolled the sleeve back down. “It’s just a little.”

“I can’t heal you.” He lashed out and grabbed his arm again. “It’ll happen again!”

Riku ripped away, using his real strength this time. When he did, there was nothing Tenn could do to restrain him. The raw strength of an oni overpowered his own. 

“You’ll leave me long before then,” Riku said. “So what does is matter?”

All the years of a celestial being, short just a few, and Tenn could not find the wisdom to answer him.


	4. Chapter 4

The smell of grass and water under the summer sun reminded Iori of his childhood home. He on the edge of a stone wall that kept cattle from the fields out of the residential neighborhood in this rural town.

The lieutenant, as if he’d sensed his distant mood, called out “catch” and lobbed an apple at him before he’d had a chance to turn around.

Iori caught it and turned it over in his hand to check for bruises or wormholes. There were none.

“Good reflexes,” the lieutenant said. He smiled almost like he was proud or something.

Iori had noticed him drinking less as of late. He wasn’t sure what brought the change, since it certainly wasn’t his objections. Maybe he’d just gotten better at hiding it.

“Did they pay us their taxes in fruit?” 

The lieutenant laughed. “Yeah, and I’m not gonna tell on them.”

Iori took a bite of the apple. It was juicy and crisp. The flavor of it had a slight floral note that unleashed a flood of his memories. “I’ve eaten this before,” he said.

“An apple?”

Iori huffed. “No, this specific breed. The ones my family grew tasted like this.”

The lieutenant was drawn to old stories like a lecher to an attractive woman, imposing himself where he wasn’t wanted.

“Was your home around here?”

“In the mountain range,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it was close.”

He took another bite of the apple. “Ringo,” he said. “I called that spirit Ringo.”

“Apple? Why?”

“I think he gave me a name that sounded like that, but I couldn’t pronounce it.” He closed his eyes and gripped the apple between his fingers. The smell of the grass and how a cool wind felt on his skin.

***

The house was small but sturdy, nestled in a windy valley. His grandfather was an old man who didn’t like the company of others much. His mother, what Iori could remember of her, was unassuming. She’d go along with the whims of others easily. Living her father’s remote life never bothered her.

His father had died in some battle for some noble. Iori didn’t even know which one. 

None of their faces or voices were as clear as the smell of the apples, or the color of that boy’s eyes.

“Rin-go?” Iori, small for his age even at four years old, held up the apple in his hands.

“No, no, no,” the boy said. “Ri-ku. Riku!”

It was hard for Iori to say much. Later he’d realize that it was his lack of socialization, and make efforts to learn every word he could. 

The boy took the apple offered. “For me?”

Iori nodded.

“Thanks!” He took a bite. “Its tasty.”

Iori was happy. He’d never pleased anyone before. He’d always been too weak to do chores or work outside. 

He brought apples because they were plentiful and granddad never seemed to notice them missing. He snuck out while they were working to the crag of rock where the strange boy seemed to live.

The boy was grateful. He pat him on the head. 

It wasn’t that his family didn’t love him. Not that. They worked so hard. But because of his illness, he couldn’t contribute anything to their livelihood. All he could do was take. 

But Ringo smiled at him and said “thanks.”

That’s why, even when it hurt to breathe, and his legs felt they would give out at any moment, Iori pushed himself to go there, all the way to the little outcropping of rock where the boy lived. 

His nails were like a dog’s claws. Black and tough. When he touched Iori’s face, they tickled. “It has infected you, even as far as out here,” he said. Iori only stared at him blankly. “This taint clings to innocence and unconditional love.”

“I’m sick,” Iori said. He remembered being ashamed for his friend to know it, hoping he would never have to see. He didn’t understand the rest. Infection. Unconditional. Those were words he didn’t know. 

“I can take it away,” he said, and he looked so sad. “I can make you better, but then I have to leave.”

“Make me better,” he thought aloud. “But you leave?”

“If I stick around, you’ll just absorb it again.”

“I don’t want you to leave!” Iori threw his arms around the boy’s neck and began to cry. “You’re my friend.”

“You’ll always be my friend. But, I want you to grow up. I want you to live.”

He knew those words. His parents had begged the gods so many times. _Please don’t let him die. Let him grow up._

The boy put his hand over Iori’s forehead and told him to close his eyes.

“Thanks for the apples.”

***

The lieutenant heard Iori’s summation of that memory and he laughed. 

“What about that was funny?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just that your yokai friend sounds so noble, saving an innocent kid like that. What I keep trying to figure out is why some celestial fox would want to save me.”

Another voice joined them. “Maybe it’s because you are just so good looking?”

Iori turned with a start to find Captain Nikaido standing there. Nikaido came off as a man unbothered by most everything, but he moved swift and silent as a thief in the night when he chose to.

The lieutenant wasn’t phased at all. Must have sensed him approach. Iori had a lot to learn, still.

“Relax, kiddo,” the Captain said. “You’re always so uptight and you’re so young, it’s exhausting.”

“Captain,” Iori said. He wondered how much of his conversation with the Lieutenant he’d heard. “It seems our time here is being wasted.”

“Hey, hey now,” the lieutenant grumbled. “I was enjoying my break.”

“As it happens, I have a mission for the two of you, and you’ll be joined by our new member. This is a request directly from commander Osaka, so try not to fuck it up, all right?”

The lieutenant groaned. “We can’t disappoint the illustrious Osaka Sogo after all.”

Iori wasn’t as amused. “Why the two of us?”

“Because the reports indicate the target is a kitsune,” he said. 

The lieutenant straightened up. Iori watched his face and tried to understand what emotion the mention of the mysterious kitsune would rule in him, but there was nothing there. He’d gone dark, like a storm cloud rolling over the sun.

“It may be the same entity that healed Gaku that time. That’s why you have to go, Iori. To make sure he doesn’t get seduced by a yokai.”

The comment was in jest, but Iori frowned. “And the third member will be someone Commander Osaka sent to keep an eye on us.”

The captain didn’t verbally agree with that, but his apologetic smile said it all. “Be careful out there.”


End file.
